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Decline The end of the heyday of the Thousand Islands came with stunning suddeness. After major fires in 1911 and 1912 burned the large hotels, Frontenac and Columbian (and when another, the Marsden House at Alexandria Bay closed) "practically fifty percent of boat traffic ended. All large excursion steamers were withdrawn." 'Steamboat days were over by 1917." The years through World War I were depressed on the river. More general passenger traffic on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence also declined during the war years. In 1913 Captain Visger was forced to sell his last boat, the elegant Castenet, in order to pay back wages. The grand old "Saint," built by the Folgers in 1888, like most of the large excusrions steamboats, was taken out of service by World War I. And attempt revive her cruise out of Kingston in the early 1920s proved unprofitable, so the St. Lawrence was dismanteled. As the Depression set in during the early 1930s, the only remaining river excursion steamboat making scheduled tours was the Riverside, which was unprofitable and deliberately scuttled in 1933 at the entrance to the International Rift. The hulk remained there thirty-four years, until finally removed in 1967.
S.S. Riverside. Paul Malo photograph, from A Floating World.
In 1946, however, the Island Queen made a Thousand Islands steamboat excursion. She was not an old vessel, however, having been put in service in the 1930s.
The End of the Age of Steam
Longer voyage passenger traffic on the St. Lawrence continued, however. In 1913, the R. and O. (Richileu and Ontario) and several other shipping companies, including the Folgers' Thousand islands Steamboat Company, amalgamated under the name Canada Steamship Lines. This new company continued passenger boat service throughout the Great Lakes as well as in Quebec, where the company also plied the tourist trade with the popular Manoir Richelieu and Hotel Tadoussac.
Current flag of Canada Steamship Lines Inc.
Completion of Canada's Grand Trunk Railroad, parallel the river and lake shore, connecting Montreal and Toronto, was the real cause of decline of steamship passenger traffic.
Kingston at a local pier.
Reportedly, "in the 1940s the Canada Steamship Line was the last to remove it's passengers steamers, due to the advent of the gasoline engine." True, the grand CSL steamboats Kingston and Toronto were the last that some of us recall on the river. The steam-powered sidewheelers SS Toronto, with a passenger capacity of 855, was built in 1899 and the SS Kingston, with a similar carrying capacity two years later. Both vessels were built at the Bertram shipyard at the west end of Toronto Harbour. My recollection of the cause of disappearance differs, however.
There is an old adage, "sailors fear fire more than water." During the 1940s disasterous fires were the death knell of the remaining steamboats. Canada Steamship Lines' Harmonic burned in 1945. Four years later, on the night of September 16, 1949, while docked in the “safeharbour” of Toronto’s famed Pier 9 at the foot of Yonge Street, Canada Stseamship Lines' huge Noronic became a deadly inferno-–in just fifteen minutes killing 188 persons.
S.S. Noronic About this time, 1950, I recall reading that one of the two--the Kingston or the Toronto--likewise had burned at its Toronto home port during winter maintenance. Fortunately there was no loss of life, but the handwriting was on the wall. Shortly it was annnounced that the other of the last two passenger steamships would be removed from service.
Apparently the generic hazard of these grand old steamboats was paint--layer upon layer of imflammable material--as well as oil, applied to all the woodwork. The ships were incendiary bombs ready to explode.
According to another source, "the passenger business came to an end for CSL in the early 1950s. Increasingly stringent safety regulations made it economically impractical for the company to bring what had become known as the 'Great White Fleet' into line." Another writer recalled that, "by the mid-1960s the days of passenger steamboat travel came to an end and Canada Steamship Lines now carries only general freight and bulk cargoes, primarily grain, coal, ore, salt, gypsum and potash." The CSL Niagara appears in our header.
While Canada Steamship Lines rid itself of its passenger boats (SS Toronto in 1939 and SS Kingston in 1949) it sold SS Cayuga to a private organization consisting of 700 nostalgic shareholders who kept the vessel operating from Toronto to ports on the Niagara River until 1957. After a few years, she too was scrapped.
S.S. Cayuga The last local steamboat at the Thousand Islands probably was the smaller, old Riverside, which some of us remember scuttled at the entrance to the International Rift--a poignant reminder of glory days passed. Although the age of steam had passed, in 1981 Bob Clarke launched the MV Canadian Empress, simulating a period passenger liner. Robert W. Preston has written and engaging account of the construction campaign: The Canadian Empress.
Canadian Empress in Admiralty Islands. Ian Coristine photograph.
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